


melt

by zuzuzukas_dream



Category: Danganronpa, Danganronpa Another Episode, Super Danganronpa 2
Genre: DANGANRONPA 2 AND 1 SPOILERS, DANGANRONPA ANOTHER EPISODE SPOILERS, F/M, Gen, YOU KNOW THE DRILL EVERYTHING IS POST-GAME, its mostly naegi talking, naegi has emotions, surprise its just me venting in disguise, this is one of the fics i actually think ixecuted well instead of absolutely everything going wrong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-08
Updated: 2017-08-08
Packaged: 2018-12-13 00:26:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11748306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zuzuzukas_dream/pseuds/zuzuzukas_dream
Summary: Makoto is honest.





	melt

**Author's Note:**

> arrrr there may be a kin in this here fic
> 
> uh i rly love kirinae so much and i put a lot of effort into kirigiris characterisation here but shes very difficult cuz in theory u wanna go for Badass Quiet Queen and also Emotional Teen but thats a really hard balance to get okay

"You look exhausted," Kyouko notes. Makoto's eyes, barely alive, flicker up to her.

"It's been a long week," he laughs. A tedious month. A painful past few years and a very sad life. Or, maybe that's an overstatement - but, it's been a bad day from the moment he woke up. Some days it's just like that.

She, in all her silent tenderness, tilts her head and comes to sit by him on the edge of the bed. "Time passes the same every week," she replies. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Her hair, tied elegantly into a ponytail, gathers in ringlets on the duvet. The colour of it gives the whole of her a cold appearance in this dim, blue-tinted light.

Makoto doesn't like to see her like that now. His gaze passes over her, and then turns to the wall ahead.

"I don't think there's anything to talk about. I'm just..." His tongue falters in his mouth. "Tired, like you said." A smile stretches dry lips just for her.

Unfortunately for the muted guilt building up in his stomach, she persists under something like irritation. "I understand if you don't want to talk about it, but you're always pressing me to say something if I'm bothered. At this point, there isn't an option for you to bottle everything up."

"I'm not bottling anything up," he says, now forced to look at her. He hopes the pleading in his eyes will allow him to be left alone. Through them, meeting hers, he feels the stubborn thoughtfulness radiating from her. Brows lightly creased, lips pursed ever so slightly in Kyouko's closest expression to a pout, she stares into him as though to take the problems out of him that way.

Face to face with her, his attempt at a smile slips. He pulls away.

"You are foolishly honest," she says. Such a broad statement comes soon enough to suggest she's thought it before - and, it occurs to him that he's heard her say it before. Back in Hope's Peak, she told him the same thing. Now, as he fixates on the floor, she's merely repeating it. "Do you remember me telling you that?"

Reluctantly, Makoto says, "Yes."

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees her bring her ponytail over her shoulder and begin playing absently with the strands. "What I meant then was that you wear your heart on your sleeve. I've found it has more meanings than I thought."

His stomach begins to bubble with anxiety. The kind you get when somebody is too close to you, too suddenly. As though they're directly breathing the air from your lungs. Brushing against you.

"You are honest, until it concerns what's most important about your own health," she observes. Makoto didn't realise he'd entered a therapy session, but here she is. "You... don't want to bother people, but when they're close enough - it becomes a bother."

Makoto's head, once again, snaps up. No - no, of course he doesn't want to bother people. Everybody else has so much more going on in their lives. Being a drain on them, getting emotional and asking for the support they need to give themselves - that's not fair.

To think that-- no. He's been too quiet. Too open.

"I-I'm sorry," Makoto says. "I didn't mean to make it look like I'm having that much of a bad time. It's just-- with... Komaru, and Hajime..." Looking at her properly, it occurs that Kyouko hasn't been impressed since he opened his mouth to reply.

"Is it so alien that you should talk about those things?" she asks. The pitch of her tone heightens as she speaks, and his nerves feel like ropes of guilt, tightening. "I'm not one to talk to people about my own emotions. You know that. But, you?"

"I think you're making it out to be more than it is," says Makoto, earning a sigh from her. She stays wordless, however, her face now angled away from him. "I'm worried about Komaru, I'm worried about Hajime. They're on my mind. That's it."

"What are you worried about?"

A moment passes, silent, and then her eyes find him once more. It is for a few seconds of fumbling that Makoto realises she's caught him. But, he still tries to end the subject.

He scuffs his shoes. "With what Komaru's seen, I want... to talk to her and see how she's doing," he tells her. "She seems strong, but she's still my little sister. I'm -- of course I'm worried. No matter what, I'm worried." Then, he looks to his hands, toying with his thumb absently. "With Hajime, it's... You've got to pay so much attention. Even with how close we are, I still find out so many new things, so many of them horrible. None of us can remember what Hajime's been through -- not even someone like Tsumiki.

"And that's it," he finishes, looking at her somewhat firmly. There is still a remnant of pleading in him - still a swelling sensation of nervous sweat around his eyes and ears.

"That's it?" she asks, unconvinced.

"That's it," he repeats. After another moment of silence, wherein the pair of them know that that is absolutely not "it", Makoto slaps his knees and stands. "That's it, and I... I feel better now. I've talked about it, and it makes sense that-"

"Makoto," she stops him.

He stares at her, mouth closing, and swallows.

"I'm sorry. I know I'm intruding. After this, I will leave you to whatever it is you want to do, and I will finish up my work and I will go to bed," she says, one hand holding up her weight as she gestures with the other. Her eyes are piercing. "But, it is my job to do this. You understand what you've just said, don't you? That you want to, essentially, ask two people, who you care very deeply about, what's bothering them."

Makoto hates it when she does this.

"What would you do if those two people wouldn't open up? What would you do if you couldn't help them, even though that was so important to you?"

She's right. Of course she's right.

There's an undeniable wetness to his gaze that has him blinking and turning to the side, immediately embarrassed. Vulnerable. The lump in his throat comes with it, and for a long few moments, he simply clenches and lets go of tight fists.

He apologises again, because he doesn't know what else to do. Because he's pushed her away. "I-I'm sorry," he says, loathing the cracking of his voice, the strain of it. The blubbering undertones that will only get worse from here on out because once he starts, it's hard to stop. "I-I... I just... It--."

Kyouko beckons him to sit down again, but he shakes his head vigorously, the words piling up his throat like he's going to be sick. Floodgates open.

"I... really just want my family," he starts with. The most prominent line in his head. Also, perhaps, the most painful, to the point where his lips are barely capable of forming the words. In his head, he feels a child's lips forming the same words, as though he never aged enough to be without them. "I miss them."

She looks gently at him, hands now folded neatly, back straight. His eyes aren't capable of seeing full details in this state, but he can make out the shapes of her.

"Komaru... One of the last times I saw her was in that video," he says. "I've only seen her -- once since that. She's... She's grown, and she's seen so much and I haven't been there. She saw that video, Kyouko." His pitch, wavering, goes incredibly high.

"She is a strong girl. You know that. She managed to save an entire city from kids just like the remnants who had to be put in the Neo system. Don't underestimate her," Kyouko says. Her attempt to be comforting is rough around the edges, but means well.

More blubbing comes from Makoto. "T-Touko said-- from what Touko said, she... She _broke down_. I wasn't there--"

"You couldn't have been there."

"To save my own skin, I stayed out!" he cries. "How... _selfish_ is that? I-I left her. They were going to turn her into the next--"

"But, they didn't. You made the right decision, even if it's been hard on her," Kyouko says. He looks to the floor, knowing she's right. "She hasn't stayed in Towa because you didn't help her. She's... stayed in Towa because you and your family are generous at heart. You give before you consider yourself."

"I..." Makoto bites his lip. "I only give because... Because, it makes me happy to be seen as a nice person," he says. "But, Komaru, she lives in the moment. She smiles because you smile."

Kyouko stands, not so quickly as to startle him. "I don't believe that you're any different."

He won't meet her eyes.

"I-I'm tired," he hiccups. "I'm tired, that's -- that's literally just it. I'm tired of _going_ , I'm tired of-- of just..." His hands vaguely try to shape his words, but for a moment he has to catch his breath. It isn't easy - this, this absolute emotional visibility. It's never happened in front of her before. It's rarely happened in front of anyone.

He swallows thickly. "I'm sick of going," his voice wobbles, "a-and just... Everything's coming at me, a-and no matter how much I just-- ignore this sick feeling in me, this horror, that says that nothing is fine no matter how much I try to pretend it is, I can't stop. I-I won't shut up for one second about -- about _friendship_ , about..." His hands are shaking now, and through a moment's clearness in his eyes, he sees how open her eyes are. Attentive. "I-I just... I wanna... sit down, I wanna look -- back. I don't know, Kyouko, I just..."

One gloved hand gently holds his arm. His eyes narrow further, lips and chin almost convulsing with the weight of emotion behind them.

"It just... N-nothing... seems to feel real to me." he says. "A-and, I'm... This is stupid. This is so stupid."

"It's not."

"I'm -- I'm scared. I don't know why I'm scared. I-it's stupid. I love my family, my friends -- I love this world we've built, and we're _okay_ , and everything I've faced hasn't been as bad as it could've, but I'm --scared. E-everything important to me feels... _fragile_ , and it's..." His shoulders lift and fall, a sad, sad smile pulling his lips far too wide. "I feel like -- the world just keeps growing further away from me, because I-- can't face what happens every single time I put my trust in something good. I... I don't want to lose you, I don't want to lose any of you. I can't do it alone--"

It is then that Kyouko embraces him. Warmly, as though thoroughly alive for the first time. There is passion in the way she squeezes him - pulls him against her like he's about to fall, and if she doesn't keep hold of him now, then she'll lose him forever.

And, he weeps. There is still more - so much more. Rivers cannot hold the kinds of fears he harbours, the memories that gather and sting, the need to pull everything he adores as close to him as possible at any one time. He doesn't tell her, out of inability in his shivering state, that every moment away from her reawakens the horror of her lifeless face, so much like that of his own childhood friend, slumped against the the plastic shower base. Doesn't tell her, in his hiccups and his sobs, that Hajime, dear Hajime, came sobbing to him in such a familiar way, and that he loathes the world for loathing such a kind-hearted, wounded boy.

Tries to tell her he's thankful, but all that comes out is tears.

"I love you," she says. Honest and whole and solid and loud, right by by his ear. "We love you. This world needs you, and we..." There is something like a sniffle from her. It rekindles his own. "We need the honest you. Please promise me you won't stop being the real you."

In that moment, no matter if he's sure, so sure, that he can never promise something like that, that he'll always find ways to bury, twist and cut up the truth, no matter if the very idea of talking again suddenly hurts him and scares him and has him hiding deeper in her blazer - Makoto nods, and sobs something of an, "Okay."

In return for this promise, no matter how weak, she continues to hold him until there are no tears left in him.

Because, she knows he loves her too.

**Author's Note:**

> owch im being sad times


End file.
